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Scripture Reading: Rom. 6:19; 12:1; 1 Cor. 6:19-20; 2 Cor. 5:14-15
Following regeneration a believer needs to have a clearance of the past, and he needs to consecrate himself. The New Testament clearly teaches and deals with our need to consecrate ourselves to the Lord after we are saved. In a local church we must spend a certain amount of time to help the brothers and sisters one by one experience consecration and realize it in a full way. In some places we have spent one or two years, week after week and message after message, stressing that all the believers, the saved ones, need to consecrate themselves, not merely in a doctrinal way but in a very practical way. Some brothers and sisters have even been willing to open themselves and give a testimony of their consecration so that their experience can be checked by others in the church.
In his teachings in the New Testament, the apostle Paul always stresses consecration. In Romans, for example, consecration is mentioned in chapter 6 and again in chapter 12. Romans 6 deals with our release from sin by realizing that we have been crucified with Christ. If we read this chapter carefully, however, we will see that the chief point is not only realizing our crucifixion with Christ but that we must offer ourselves, not only consecrating ourselves as a whole but offering our members. Verse 19 says, “I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh. For just as you presented your members as slaves to uncleanness and lawlessness unto lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification.” To present our members is to present them one by one. If we realize that we have been crucified with Christ and that we are released from sin, we must cooperate with the work the Lord has done by offering our members to Him. Then in chapter 12, before the apostle begins to say something about the Body life, he advises and exhorts us to present our bodies in a definite way (v. 1).
From our own experience we can testify that without consecration it is impossible to experience the crucifixion of Christ and even more impossible to realize the Body life. Consecration is the basis for every kind of experience after regeneration. For regeneration alone, there is no need for consecration, but if we do not consecrate ourselves after regeneration, we will be frustrated. We will be outside the gate, having no entrance into further experiences. All spiritual experiences after regeneration depend on the step of consecration.
Many spiritual writings in the past, such as those by Andrew Murray on prayer, the inner life, and abiding in Christ, point out the need for consecration. In many of his writings, Murray points out that in order to experience what he is talking about in that book, we need to take the step of consecration and pass through this crisis. In order to have a prayer life, we must pass through the crisis of consecration. In order to have faith, we must pass through consecration. And in order to abide in Christ, we must offer ourselves to Christ.
In her book entitled The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith also stresses consecration. With the central message of consecration, Mrs. Smith and her husband, among others, began what became the Keswick Convention in England in the second half of the nineteenth century. The Keswick Convention had the sole purpose of helping Christians to realize that they had to pass this crisis, and according to history, the blessing brought in through Keswick was due primarily to consecration. In the early publications of Keswick, the messages spoke much of consecration. It seems that those writers, such as Evan Hopkins, knew nothing but consecration. There is no doubt that at that time, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, consecration was the main item of the Lord’s recovery. About that same time, the work of the foreign missions began. This was something of the Lord, because for service in the mission field there is the real need of consecration. According to church history, more people consecrated themselves to the Lord at that time than ever before, most of them helped by the messages of the Keswick Convention.
It is entirely right that for any kind of experience we need to consecrate ourselves. Consecration is like the entrance to a building; if we do not pass through the entrance, it is impossible to go anywhere in the building. In order to share in any part of a building, we must pass through the gate. Immediately in front of the first entrance to the tabernacle there was the altar. There were many things to experience in the tabernacle. Outside was the laver, and inside were the table of the bread of the Presence, the lampstand, the incense altar, and the Ark with its items, but in order to share in those things one had to pass the altar and deal with it. There was no possibility of touching anything within the tabernacle without passing through the altar. With the altar there is the aspect of redemption, but there is also the aspect of consecration. Everything placed on the altar was an offering; this signifies consecration.
The tabernacle is a type both of Christ and of the church. In order to experience the riches of Christ typified by the things in the tabernacle, we need to pass through the crisis of consecration. In addition, in order to experience the church life as God’s building and dwelling place, we must pass the altar, that is, the crisis of consecration. In order to have the real Christian life and the real church life, we all must learn day by day to live a life of consecration.
The life of consecration begins with a crisis. Then after the crisis we have the way. The Scriptures speak differently from our common understanding. We often say that we take the way and go through the gate. According to the Scriptures, however, we first go through the gate, and then we have the way. The gate, not the way, comes first, as in Matthew 7:13 and 14. In spiritual matters, if we do not enter the gate, there is no way for us to go on. The gate of the spiritual things related to life is regeneration; for the life within we need the gate of regeneration. However, after we are regenerated and receive life within, we need to have a living, and for our living and daily life the gate is consecration. Many have been regenerated; that is, they have entered the gate of life. However, they do not have the proper living because they have never consecrated themselves to the Lord. They have passed through regeneration, but they have not passed through consecration. Although they are regenerated persons, they do not live as regenerated persons; that is, they have the life but not the living.
The gate for our spiritual living is consecration. Then after we enter the gate of consecration, we go on the way of consecration. Consecration has two aspects: a crisis to pass through and a way to walk on. The crisis is once for all, but the way is not once for all. Many cannot go the way of consecration because they have not entered the gate of consecration. Have you passed through the gate? As I mentioned before, Brother Watchman Nee held a training in Shanghai in 1939 and 1940, mostly for co-workers. For one year’s time he trained us in the matter of consecration. Every week when we came together, he would first ask a person to give his testimony about consecration. Brother Nee would ask us to consider the testimony, and then he himself would critique it. Almost no one passed this examination. We were all subdued by him. He would point out something in each testimony that proved that the consecration was not genuine, absolute, complete, or without reservation.
The way to check whether or not we are faithful and honest in our consecration to the Lord is by our daily life. If we check ourselves, we will see, as Brother Nee pointed out, that in many matters there is a struggle between us and the Lord, and we often win the victory. Whenever there is a struggle, the defeated one is the Lord. It is good to have a struggle with the Lord. If we have no struggle with Him, we are through with the Lord. Especially in this age on this earth there is always the struggle. To not have a struggle means that we are fallen and backslidden. In our struggle, however, who wins the victory, we or the Lord? The way to check whether or not our consecration is complete, genuine, and without reservation is by who wins the struggle. That the Lord is defeated is due to the unfaithfulness of our consecration. We have consecrated ourselves, but we may not be faithful and honest to our consecration. If we Christians would keep our consecration, the Lord will always have the victory.
All our problems today are due to our unfaithfulness in consecration. We may not have a morning watch, for example, because of a problem with our consecration. Many of us have passed the crisis, but we have not continued on the way. Therefore, in order for a church to be built up, the first foundation we must lay is the matter of consecration. We need to check with ourselves and deal with our consecration, and then we need to help others. We need to pray, fellowship, and encourage the brothers and help them one by one to come into the real experience of consecration.
We may say that we do not have much faith. The reason we do not have faith is that we are not faithful to our consecration. When we are faithful to our consecration, we have a living faith. We may say that we do not have power. The reason again is that we are not faithful to our consecration. When we are faithful to our consecration, we have the ground to claim the power, and it is ours. We need to go to the Lord once again to deal with and clear up our consecration. If we do this, we will see the blessings. Then we will have a burden to help others.
We may have consecrated ourselves to the Lord after we were regenerated, but the problem is whether or not we have continued in our consecration. The unfaithfulness to our consecration is the reason many of us have not grown much and advanced on the Lord’s way. We may compare this to someone who walks all the time but does not walk on the right way. We may come to the meetings, fellowship with the saints, and do many things in the Christian life, but we may not be on the proper way. To go on is a matter of consecration. Whenever the Lord points out something to us, we need to say, “Lord, I let You have it.” If we do this, we advance by one step, but if we do not let the Lord have the victory, we are not on the way, regardless of how many things we do. To go on the proper Christian way is to take step after step in our consecration.
We have to go on by consecration day by day. A day without consecration is a wasted day. If we struggle with the Lord and win the victory, defeating the Lord, we will only waste our time regardless of how much we do for the Lord. The measure of our life and going on is our consecration.
If we once again deal with our consecration, we will have a revival. Our outreach to bring people to the Lord and our consecration go together. If we have no real experience of consecration, we have no power to bring people to the Lord. Our power to bring people to the Lord depends on our consecration. If we struggle with the Lord and win, causing the Lord to be defeated, we are weak, and we lose the power to bring people to the Lord. However, if we always take the ground of consecration and go on step by step, we have the power to bring people to the Lord.
As we have said, the crisis of consecration is the key to our other experiences, and it is a lifelong, not once-for-all, experience. In the type of the people of Israel, they had to offer the burnt offering day by day, morning and evening (Lev. 6:9, 12-13). The altar was called the altar of burnt offering. The burnt offering was the continual offering, and the fire for the burnt offering was not supposed to cease; it had to stay burning day and night. This type shows us that we need to have a life of the burnt offering, a life with fire burning on the altar all day long. It is entirely right that as Christians we should consecrate ourselves every morning and again in the evening after the day’s duties. We may think that this is too much, that we already have offered ourselves to the Lord for many years, but we still need to offer ourselves each morning and each evening. In addition, although it is not legal, it is right that we should offer ourselves specifically for the Lord’s Day and for the service and worship on that day.
In order to help others by bringing them to the Lord as new converts or by helping the younger ones to go on, we need the real experience of consecration. Then when we help someone, we should first determine whether or not he is regenerated. If he is not, we need to find a way to help him to experience regeneration. If he is a regenerated person, however, the most important thing is to help him one way or another to consecrate himself. A person may pray to the Lord, seek His mercy, and obtain His mercy, but if he is not consecrated, these are not the real experiences of life. The genuine experience of Christ depends entirely on consecration.
In order to help someone to be consecrated, we must first be a consecrated person. If we are not a consecrated person, we cannot help others to be. We must also have a consecrated living. If we live in our consecration, it will be easy to help others to consecrate themselves, because there will be an atmosphere and a power of life with us. When we contact people and fellowship with them, we will have an influence on them. This must not be something in word only; this must be something we practice.
In order to help someone in this way, we must pray for him to find one way or another to bring him through the crisis of consecration.
Then after we have a certain amount of prayer, we should fellowship with that person. Here we need the proper techniques. Of course, the way we take depends on the Lord’s leading at the time, but our fellowship will usually be in one of several ways. One way is to give him a testimony of consecration. We may give our own testimony, but presenting someone else’s testimony can also be effective.
A second way is to help the person to realize the Lord’s love and how lovable He is. This is not easy to do. Many ministers realize that the most difficult message to give is one on the loveliness of the Lord. To speak of the Lord being faithful, great, or marvelous is easy, but some brothers may not be able to speak for five minutes on the loveliness of the Lord. To say something about the loveliness of the Lord requires that we have the fresh sense of His love. Someone may have love for a brother, for example, but after working with him for a year, he no longer has a fresh sense of love. Even a husband and wife can lose the fresh sense of love. If we do not have a fresh sense, it is hard to speak about love. We may talk about love, but we may not have the power of inspiration.
The most effective way to help people to consecrate is to help them to realize the loveliness of the Lord. I have heard the testimony of a certain co-working sister many times. Every time she speaks of the Lord’s loveliness, she speaks with tears. With her there is always the freshness of the sense of His loveliness. I have never heard her testimony when I did not see many people weeping. She has caused thousands of people to consecrate themselves to the Lord.
The third way to fellowship with someone is to use the proper verses of the Scriptures. One of the best passages is 2 Corinthians 5:14-15, which says, “For the love of Christ constrains us because we have judged this, that One died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all that those who live may no longer live to themselves but to Him who died for them and has been raised.” Another good passage is 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, which says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you have been bought with a price. So then glorify God in your body.” As we have seen, Romans 12:1 also speaks of presenting our bodies.
A further way to lead someone to consecrate himself is to help him to pray with us. When we help people, we should not talk too much. When we bind something with a cord, we tie a knot in it. To talk too much with someone is to loosen the knot. Before praying, many people do not have the sincerity to consecrate themselves, but after they pray, their consecration becomes real. After we talk with someone, we must find a way to help him to offer himself in prayer to the Lord. This is the same as in our gospel preaching. When we speak with people about the gospel, at a certain point we need to ask them to pray. The Lord is very willing and ready to hear and answer a prayer of consecration.
We need to help people to pray in a definite way. This very much depends on our own experience. If we have the experience of consecrating ourselves in a real and full way, we will know how to help someone. We will be able to help him to realize that he must offer to the Lord in a definite way whatever he is, whatever he has, and whatever he can do. We must believe that when a person prays in this way, he is having a real contact with the Lord.
Even if a person is not sincere, the Lord is faithful. In the types we can see that whether or not a person was sincere in offering something on the altar, the Lord accepted it. Anything offered on the altar could not be taken back, even if it was offered without sincerity. We can make a deal with a man and then cancel it, but we cannot cancel our deal with the Lord. We cannot say, “Lord, I gave You something wrongly, so I take it back.” We may agree with that, but the Lord will never agree. Some brothers and sisters were not sincere before they prayed, but after they prayed, they became sincere, consecrated ones. Someone may even say, “A brother asked me to pray to offer myself to the Lord, so I just prayed. It did not cost me much.” However, his prayer is still accepted. He may cancel it, but the Lord will not. The brother may “break the engagement,” but with the Lord there is no divorce. There is no account in the Scriptures in which a person brought something to the altar, then repented, and the thing came back to him. There is no repentance for anything offered at the altar. Regardless of what kind of person one is, if he offers anything at the altar, the matter is settled.
Therefore, we should not talk too much. At a certain point we should help someone to pray, to go to the altar and lay himself on the altar. Then we will see the result. I have heard genuine testimonies to this effect. Someone may still remember the place, the time, and the persons he was with when he offered himself to the Lord. He may testify that for many years he did not keep his word, yet he could not forget it. Even after twenty years that word still remained with him, and he had no peace until the Lord caused him to keep his word of consecration. If we know many Christians, we can present many testimonies like this. Let us help people in a practical way. We should not merely give them a message. We must help them to “tie the knot” by making a definite decision in prayer.
After a certain time we should fellowship again with the new ones to check the outcome of their consecration. We mostly find one of three issues. First, after consecrating themselves, some genuine ones doubt whether or not they have truly consecrated. They may not feel that they were sincere. We must help them to realize that this doubt comes from God’s enemy. We should help this kind of person believe that he has truly consecrated himself. We should not say, “If you do not feel that you have truly offered yourself, do it again.” If we help someone in this way, we open the back door for the enemy to come in. Then if we come to that person a third time, we will find that he is still doubtful. Rather, we should say, “Brother, there is no need for you to pray in this way. You have already offered yourself. The only way you should pray now is to say, ‘Lord, I stand on the ground of my consecration, and I continue to offer myself more and more.’” To pray in this way is right.
I once heard of a brother who offered himself to the Lord, after which the enemy came in to fool him and cause him to doubt. He was a farmer who tilled the soil. When he was at one end of the field, he offered himself to the Lord, but by the time he reached the other end, he already doubted it, so he offered himself again. However, by the time he turned around and reached the first end of the field, he doubted his consecration again. He did this many times, falling into the snare of the enemy. Finally, he realized what he was doing. He put a stake in the ground and said, “Satan, this marks the spot on which I truly consecrated myself to the Lord. Do not speak any further word of doubt to me.” After that he had the peace to go on. If we are not sure that we have consecrated ourselves to the Lord, it is hard to have the peace to go on. This is why the enemy, Satan, always does his best to cause us to doubt our sincerity and doubt whether we have truly consecrated ourselves to the Lord. We must learn this lesson of how to help people.
A second issue of a person’s consecration is that he may have offered himself in a shallow way. After his consecration, he neglected it. The best way to help him is to pray, not in a general way but by calling on the Lord as the highest authority to deal with this person. We may pray, “Lord, this is a brother who prayed in Your name. You have to honor Your name, raise up Your name, and claim this person.” Many times this kind of prayer is prevailing. We should not pray this way in our self, because many times the Lord will do something such as bring a certain kind of hardship to that person. He will answer this call to the highest authority and come in to intervene and deal with the person for whom we pray. Then something may happen to him, and he will come to us for help. It is not like this every time, but this is a principle.
The third issue of a person’s consecration is that it is real and normal without any doubt. This is wonderful, but we still must know how to help such persons, not legally but according to the principles of the spiritual life. We should tell them that consecration is not a once-for-all matter. It is not only a crisis to pass through but a way to go on. Day by day we must keep our consecration real, living, and available. This means that day by day we need to consecrate ourselves. Then after we consecrate ourselves to the Lord, there will always be some struggle between us and the Lord. Whenever this happens, we must be defeated by the Lord; we must never defeat Him. We must always let Him win the victory, and we must be willing to be defeated. We should pray, “Lord, I want to be defeated by You. I do not want to defeat You.”
We should also help such a person to realize that his inner consciousness, the anointing of the indwelling Holy Spirit, will now be very living and keen. All day long he must walk, live, and do things in the way of caring for this inner consciousness. As long as we care for the inner consciousness, we will keep a living fellowship with the Lord. Strictly speaking, therefore, the next experience after consecration is the sense of the inner anointing. It is a great thing to help the brothers and sisters pass through a crisis of consecration and enter into the stage of the inner sense of the anointing.
Too often we help the brothers in the church only in a general way. This is why I tell the co-workers that the proper way to learn something is in courses. The proper way to learn mathematics, for example, is by completing one course and moving on to another. If we do not learn by courses, we can study for our whole life and never learn much. In the church we may have message after message every week, but some brothers have been listening to messages for fifty years without learning much because the teaching is too general. The writings of the apostles, especially of the apostle Paul, are not general; they are very definite. Today in the church we need definite teachings. This is why we need trainings. It is right to take a certain period of time in a local church to deal with the stages of spiritual experience. We may need six months to deal with the real experience of regeneration, helping people to be clear what regeneration is and how they can know its experience. We need another period of time to deal with consecration. We need period after period in this way for a number of years. Then we will see a local church built up with a group of believers who have the real experiences. They know what regeneration is, they have experienced it, and they know how to help people with it. Likewise, they know what consecration is, they have this experience, they live in it, and they know how to help new converts to go on. The believers will have not merely a certain desire or love but the experience of life, the genuine learning, the discipline, and the practice. Such a church is a proper church.
